Should There be a Rhythm to Your Diet?

What you eat is very important. We’re sorry, but what you put into your body is always going to have an effect on many things, especially your weight.

But when you eat may have a far great effect on your body than we think, according to a new study.

It’s all about circadian rhythms, which is the way our bodies get used to waking up and sleeping and eating. And disrupting them by eating outside of the hours that your body is trying to keep steady every day may usher in more significant changes on your health and weight than you could expect.

Here is what it comes down to — you should be eating in the morning and afternoon, in an 8-10 hour range, and skipping the late night snacks. When you don’t your body is not nearly as capable of processing the food, which can lead to health issues. This article has many valuable examples and a deep dive into what all this means, but here is what it says about the new experiment, which involved men who were pre-diabetic:

In one phase of the study, the subjects ate their meals in a 12-hour daily window for five weeks. In the other phase, they were fed the same meals in a six-hour window beginning each morning. The researchers had the subjects eat enough food to maintain their weight so they could assess whether the time-restricted regimen had any health benefits unrelated to weight loss.

It did. On the time-restricted regimen, the men had lower insulin, reduced levels of oxidative stress, less nighttime hunger and significantly lower blood pressure. Their systolic pressure, the top number, fell by roughly 11 points, and their diastolic pressure dropped by 10 points.

Those kinds of results are hard to deny, and the only reason it may be hard to take them seriously is because eating in the morning is difficult and midnight snacks are delicious.

But that is not really what your body wants. Putting another thing on a schedule, like your meals, can be painful, but the benefits may be pretty tasty.

-Shane M.